Vicksburg

Made it to Vicksburg today. Very nice day all the way. Tomorrow we'll take in the National Military Park and downtown Vicksburg, tonight we're going to hang low. Staying at Magnolia RV Park on Miller Ave, it's not a beautiful park but it's nice and clean, filled up our propane tank.

Really enjoyed the Vicksburg Military Park. Hundreds if not thousands of  monuments. We started to take pictures of all then but soon decided that was fruitless, so just photoed the big ones. Grant spent 3 months trying to capture Vicksburg but in the end was able to cut off their supplies and patiently waited for their supplies to run out. Pemberton finally surrendered on July 4 1863, thus the Union grabbed control of the Mississippi and cut the Confederacy in two. Many say it was the turning point of the war. Twenty thousand Americans lost their lives in the battle.

We also visited the Coca-Cola museum, home of the place that Coca Cola was first bottled. After going into the shop we decided not to pay the $3.50 for the museum but did buy a souvenir bottle, which didn't take long to drink (8 oz),

1st Day in 2015 US Tour

We drove 365 miles today for our first day out on our 2015 US tour. Had a little bit of rain and wind but it was mostly just a cloudy and cool day. We didn't have to use our AC at all. We filled up at a Flying J in Tallahassee for 2.299/gal. We are settled in Eagle's Landing RV Park for the night. Getting here was kind of a fluke. We had called River's Edge RV Park, which is just down the road, and told them we were coming. The GPS had different ideas tho and brought us here for a savings of about $5/night. We plan on staying here a couple of nights, cause we just don't like to drive 2 days in a row. The sky cleared up this evening and it's now beautiful. Our new 1997 Saturn towed beautifully, It didn't seem to make much difference in the driving at all.  If you see us on the road stop in & say hi. The plan is to visit the Utah National Parks, Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, Nauvoo and Upper Mich as well as our 3 kids in Arkansas, Utah and Virginia.

Busch Gardens and Sea World

We bought an annual pass for Busch Gardens Tampa/Sea World Orlando and have really enjoyed many trips to both parks with family and friends. Busch held a nine week concert series and we were able to catch Herman's Hermits with Peter Noone, Fernando Valera, Memory of Ricky Nelson by his twin sons Matthew and Gunnar, Shirley Jones, The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Exile with Juice Newton.We took several tame rides and one roller coaster ride (Pat didn't breathe for 3 minutes so we didn't take any more rollercoasters).

We will attending the South East Lazy Daze get to gather at Crystal River in a couple of weeks and the head for Utah in latter April for a 7500 mile road trip. We should get back home for the last 3 months of our Busch Gardens pass.

Luray Caverns

What a wonderful coujle of days. Jerry and family met us in Massanutten Friday night and we spent Saturday in the waterpark going down the big slides. Today we drove back to Richmond, stopping off in Luray to go thru the Caverns. It wasn't until we got down to the bottom and saw the Organ Room did we remember going thru these caverns in 1997 our first year of RVing. Of course back then we didn't have a digital camera so we didn't take as many pictures of the beautiful formations that we did today.

The drive from Luray to Richmond was exceptionally beautiful - broad green pastures and fields. We drove over the Blue Ridge Mountains close to the Shenandoah National Park, very beautiful.

The Shenandoah Valley, VA

We got here Sunday after 12 hours on the road and were plumb tired. Monday we laid low to recuperate. Pat hasn't felt really well so we've taken only short walks. The area is beautiful with lots of wildlife: deer, woodchucks, rabbits, birds.

Jerry and family will be here tomorrow night . Sunday we'll go back to Richmond and spend a couple of nights then return home, probably Tuesday.

The Massanutten Resort is very, very nice. They have a great waterpark and lots of things to do including: golf, kayaking, zip line, bungee jumping, hiking, etc. We have a great 2 bedroom condo that sleeps 6. It has a large jacuzzi tub in one of the bathrooms..

Taylor Reunion in Bowling Green, Kentucky

We drove from Spring Hill to  Bowling Green Thursday in great weather. In fact we had great weather for both days of the Taylor Reunion. Joseph Taylor, Jr moved to the Bowling Green area (near Richardsville, which wasn't in our GPS) about 1808, among the first to inhabit the area. Joseph and Sarah Best had 12 children, many descendants of whom still live in the area, mostly the Hudnall and Cherry families. The picture is Jane Smith, descendant of Temperance Smith reading about Tempy's childhood in the Taylor home at the large memorial for Joseph & Sarah erected in the Taylor cemetery, currently on the property of Terry Hudnall, another Taylor descendant.

Today we drove to McGaheysville VA and are staying at a large resort in the beautiful Shenandoah valley.It was a 11 hour drive through some very beartiful country. We chose to travel via the lesser traveled roads through the beautiful Cumberland mountains, taking the Cumberland Parkway, US 19, 24,  58 etc. We saw very few cars until we got to I-81 for the last 100 miles. We finally got some rain, in fact it drizzled on us all day, not real hard tho.

Disney World

We enjoyed our last trip to Disney World last week, this completes our year's pass and afraid finishes our Disney world experience. We visited Epcot and Animal Kingdom last June and finished up with Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios last week. We enjoyed many stages shows and the more mundane, relaxing rides rather than the thrill rides. We ended at Hollywood Studios Fantasmic night show, simply amazing.

This year has been quite exciting. We helped Jerry move from Richmond to Cucamonga and back to Richmond. We also a Taylor pageant in North Caroling, "The Promised Land". This we were accompanied be Melanie, our granddaughter.The pageant depicted the immigration of the Taylor Family from North Carolina to Utah with over 120 players. It was very well done.

We'll be travelling to Kentucky in September to attend a Taylor Reunion. Kentucky was a way point on the Taylor migration from North Carolina to Utah.